K-ON!! – 13

I never thought I’d describe an episode about our favorite light music band as “trippy”, but that’s exactly what this one revolving around Azusa felt like as she kept zoning in and out of daydreams. It was like she was stuck in some sci-fi thriller she couldn’t escape, especially with how deceivingly happy some of her dreams were. The main emphasis seemed to be on Azusa feeling lonely with Yui and the others busy studying for exams over the summer break, which incidentally gave her and Ui a lot of screen time this week. There were a lot of the usual quirky moments between the two of them, but I got so psyched out by the seamless transitions to Azusa’s dreams that I lost grasp of what was real a lot of the time. While they did make it fairly clear after the fact, it was pretty hard to discern what was Azusa’s delusion and what wasn’t during the scenes themselves, which got even trippier when some of the stuff she imagined actually happened later on. It looks like the horror-themed summer anime season has already started with the Bon Festival in K-ON this week, as I couldn’t help but think of Flatliners during all this.

Reiterating that notion, Azusa and Ui even hit up the movie theaters for a summer horror flick, where it looked like Mio showed up for some special training to get over her fear of… almost everything. It was funny how Mio fainted almost instantaneously, provided that it actually happened. It turned out that was all just a dream and they ended up seeing a tearjerker instead, during which Azusa was caught up in another one about taking up an urgent lottery assistant job. As cute as it was to see Mugi thrilled about winning the pocket tissue pack and Azusa winning the seven days/eight nights vacation to Finland, I was not so thrilled when that turned out to be a dream too. Something didn’t sit well with me when Mugi and Ui pinched Azusa at her request and very eerily said how it’s all right if it’s just a dream. I have to say that I was even disturbed on some level because these random delusions were getting pretty creepy.

In terms of fan-service, the sight of Azusa’s clear tan lines may appeal to some though I can’t say I’m a huge fan. However, the recurring joke about how no one recognized her because of her tan was pretty cute at times. The “yakisoba slider” delusion at the pool was just plain weird more than anything else, but I’m not the least bit opposed to the swimsuit shots of Mugi, Yui, and Mio that came from it. For whatever reason, I got a good chuckle out of Azusa’s sarcastic remark about how easily she was able to even out her tan when Jun was praising her about it, as well as Jun getting all envious about the K-ON club’s trips to Mugi’s summer villa and the recent summer music festival. Interestingly enough, that did result in Jun agreeing to join the K-ON club next year if Azusa can’t find any more members.

Anyway, the actual summer festival had me laughing when Yui was chomping away at roasted corn, but once again questioning what I was watching when Yui dragged Azusa and ran towards the fireworks in the distance. With the surreal slow motion way that scene played out, it sure as hell felt like another dream of hers, but turned out to be the real deal. After feeling toyed with this entire episode, I was happy about the Azusa bath scene fan-service to make up for it. It was still eery how her first delusion about mixing shaved ice with tempura will make your stomach sick proved to true for Yui in the end though, albeit her original “vision” entailed watermelon and tempura. Upon seeing that, I couldn’t help but think that Azusa was possessed by a wandering spirit during this episode. Next time it looks like we’ll see some summer training of sorts, and things will be about cake again rather than trippy dreams. Whew.

WHOA the yakisoba slide was a dream?! I thought it was real since Azusa was actually tan in that sequence unlike the other delusions. During the scary movie delusion, I thought Mio was gonna scare Azusa and cause her to wake up because of the whole scary movie theme.

Good thing I decided to stay up for a few more hours to watch the streaming. RAWS were soooo delayed.

Anyway.. This episode was trippin b*lls.

I lol’d when she’d have a dream sequence again all of a sudden. I was like… Again!? Seriously…

Though I can totally relate to this. Happened to me once but not in a number of consecutive times. Stayed up so late and had to wake up 5 hours after. I set my alarm, and it rings. I dreamed I was waking up. Afterwards I realized it was a dream… Viola I overslept.. Woke up 2 hours late. AMAZING!

While the rest of my country’s population was celebrating the inauguration of a new president after almost a decade under the rule of the previous one, I was watching this episode… That and re-playing a portion of Modern Warfare‘s single-player campaign. Anyway…

Between those scenes, Azusa has some really weird dreams…weirder than Yui imagining Mugi’s eyebrows as pickled radishes, even!

And including the screenshot of blank-eyed Mio’s entire face would’ve been nightmare fuel… O.O Though an avatar of the scene would be interesting. At least Azu-nyan and Ui were there to balance out the scene.

I still wonder what other new content will KyoAni include in the next 13 episodes…considering that they have to stretch out the current content from the manga.

I was so confused most of the time. Was using the tan as a real/dream differentiator; but at the end it was too hard. However if Jun answer is real : YAY we got a guitar and bass for next year K-on band :) If only we could get Ui on that boat too. She didn’t look happy when Azusa Said that Yui still can read music… so could that be a challenge or motivation to join.
Finally every time they talk about graduation and letting the girls go is really making me sad. Plus Azusa all alone. That plot line is too serious for this show!

For the instrumentals, it looks like they’re lipsynching to “Watashi no Koi wa Hotchkiss” to make their lives easier. It looks like they’re actually singing for Fuwa Fuwa Time though. Aww, a lot of them started tearing up at the end of it…

The large screen behind them looked a bit laggy and looked as though their singing didn’t match their lips, but if you don’t look at the large screen and focused on them directly, then they sure don’t look like they were lip synching to me.

Not bad for amateurs not having any prior musical background to begin with (except Kotobuki Minako on piano), and salute to Hikasa Yoko for going so far to play the bass left-handed if she’s actually a righty.

I’m not too sure now, so I’ll have to wait and see what the BD looks like (and not these YT re-encodes). Anyway, I wasn’t basing that on the big screen for Hotchkiss, but by how Aki and Youko’s voice didn’t fade/waver at all even as their mouths moved away from the mic when they were looking down at their instruments checking chords. It didn’t sound like the CD track, but a prerecorded stage performance. Fuwa Fuwa Time was clearly live though, since they got all choked up at the end of it from tears.

I agree they’re pretty good for amateurs in the short amount of time they had to practice. Satomi on drums was particularly impressive to me.

When is the world tour!!! Is it me or the tempo is a bit slow, so the VA can play the instrument? Also noticed that they still look at finger placement to strung. I read the keyboard in the only one that have proper music background. maybe here or in sankaku ?
Nevertheless I pay to see that show ;) otaku alert!!!!

I posted earlier to thank Megalith for posting the links. We had gone into cuteness overdose. I also agree with Divine, Satomi was pretty cool on the drums but we honestly loved everyone of them. Cute Seiyuu ftw!

I think that Watermellon + Tempura thing has to do with…I’m not sure exactly what it is, but my parents occasionally mention “hot food, cold food”. No, not heat, I mean type. For example, veggies are cold, fried stuff is hot. When you mix them, it’s not good for you…or something.

Of course, unless there’s some weird chemical in soba I’m not aware of, it’s entirely up to your intestines to decide.

The soba doesn’t actually enter into it, but there’s a common folk saying in Japan that tempura and watermelon is bad for digestion. Also to avoid is eel with salted plums and mixing daikon and carrots.

Finland is a great place for vacation, actually…
And as for the episode itself, I liked the Azu-nyan centric episode, but the whole daydreaming thing was making me wonder about her psychic health… Anyway the bathtime reflections on the club and loneliness mademe kinda sad. Azusa might not look like it but shereally depends on her senpai’s.

wow the show is not ending, also means there’s more moe-ness to enjoy over K-ON!! again…

the episode is great, I don’t regard Jun-chan as someone unfamiliar anymore (after her prescence in some episodes this season), and azu-nyan dreaming in the summer holidays sure brings enviousness man, SOOOOOOO wished to get back to MY school holidays…

more K-ON!! = more moe-ness. and yeah, when’s their next school festival performance coming by?

i felt this episode was more like a reminder that the year (and the season) is halfway through and the issue of not having enough members next year is yet to be solved. because the members were not there with azusa, she was feeling some sort of “withdrawal symptoms”, i.e. loneliness. she keeps dreaming of the band members when they are actually not with her, which shows that she realises how lonely she is without them, even though she’s with ui. this main theme in this episode was further reaffirmed when she was at the summer festival, as well as in the bath.

well it’s just my 2 cents. since this ep is one of the few times there is a real conflict (i.e. what will happen to HTT after they graduate?) actually dealt with in the series, so i thought it might be somewhat significant in some sense.